Speaker 1: Hello and happy Saturday everybody. If you had not had
Speaker 1: a chance to check out the podcast Dressed to the
Speaker 1: History of Fashion now is a great time because they
Speaker 1: have just started season two, so if you have missed it,
Speaker 1: Dressed is another show in our network hosted by April
Speaker 1: Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, and April has been on this
Speaker 1: show a couple of times. To celebrate the start of
Speaker 1: their second season, we have picked a fashion history episode
Speaker 1: out of the archives today. It is Rose Berton, who
Speaker 1: was known as history's first fashion designer and if you
Speaker 1: are hungry for more, rosebrut After this episode, Dressed Tess
Speaker 1: her covered as well. They did that one back in April.
Speaker 1: In that episode, they talked to fashion and textile historian
Speaker 1: Dr Kimberly Chrisman Campbell for her perspective. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the pod. Asked, I'm Holly Fry and
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. We're talking about something I like
Speaker 1: a lot today. I'm so excited, actually so in my
Speaker 1: sort of zone of pet topics. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: big it's an intersection of several zones, it really is. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the legendary wardrobe of Marie Antoinette, who is not
Speaker 1: exactly who we're talking about, but she does figure prominently
Speaker 1: in the story. Her wardrobe has been criticized, it's been envied,
Speaker 1: it's been discussed to no end by historians and sociologists. Uh.
Speaker 1: But where did all those glorious clothes come from is
Speaker 1: a bigger question. And in large part they were the
Speaker 1: work of a woman named Rose Bertent and her staff.
Speaker 1: And Barton was a milliner who found herself basically the
Speaker 1: stylus to the queen, and she enjoyed a level of
Speaker 1: privilege that even royals were not really given at that time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while there were certainly other people designing clothes long
Speaker 1: before Berton, she was the first to really make this
Speaker 1: sort of transition from an anonymous dressmaker, although we'll talk
Speaker 1: in just a second about that term, uh, to a
Speaker 1: famous dressmaker to like basically a famous designer. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this was all because of the patronage of you know,
Speaker 1: a famous clothes horse. And a note before we get started, UH,
Speaker 1: you'll hear us refer to Rose Bertas throughout the episode
Speaker 1: as a milliner, which in today's parlance would mean that
Speaker 1: she was a hat maker, but in this time, someone
Speaker 1: with that title didn't only make hats. A milliner could
Speaker 1: be called upon to make dresses, to add trim and
Speaker 1: detailing to existing gowns. Sometimes, like a gown would be
Speaker 1: brought in to be refreshed and all the trims would
Speaker 1: be taken off and new trims would be put on
Speaker 1: and different um alterations would be made to make it
Speaker 1: look new and different. Other accessories, sometimes even gloves and
Speaker 1: underpinnings were also within the purview of a milliner. Uh.
Speaker 1: I use the terms interchangeably as milliner and dressmaker. Some
Speaker 1: historians get a little bit prickly about that um because
Speaker 1: calling her a dressmaker sort of seems to devalue her
Speaker 1: position a little. It to me, it's a very important
Speaker 1: position to be called a dressmaker. But just so you know,
Speaker 1: like she's technically a milliner, that would be her title. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use words interchangeably. I'm okay with that, and
Speaker 1: I won't even talk about We don't go into it,
Speaker 1: although we do mention one person related the millinery trade
Speaker 1: at this time sometimes had some negative associations with it
Speaker 1: of women working in it being also applying another trade
Speaker 1: at times like it was not known to be the
Speaker 1: most virtuous um occupation. Suddenly this makes the Seamstress Guild
Speaker 1: and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books really funny. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was funny already, and now you haven't just told me
Speaker 1: that it is even more funny. Yeah, and we'll mention
Speaker 1: one other person that was kind of tied to the
Speaker 1: millinery trade. That will kind of also make that a
Speaker 1: little bit clearer, and you'll see the association's uh. But
Speaker 1: we're not really going into that whole the ceed side
Speaker 1: of it too much. Shall we get started? Absolutely? So.
Speaker 1: Rose was born at Ammia, and that was a city
Speaker 1: about a hundred and twenty kilometers north of Parents, and
Speaker 1: she was born on July second, seventy seven. Her name
Speaker 1: when she was born was Marie Jeanne Berton. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that's interesting about this time in history
Speaker 1: is that people would change their names pretty frequently, sometimes
Speaker 1: as a move up the latter thing and sometimes not.
Speaker 1: But you will not hear her referred to that with
Speaker 1: that name again. So it just heads up her parents,
Speaker 1: Nicholas and Marie Marguerite Breton. We're not particularly wealthy. Uh,
Speaker 1: and in an effort to provide from Marisian and her
Speaker 1: younger brother Jean Luran, her mother worked as a sick
Speaker 1: nurse to supplement the family income. Is what her father
Speaker 1: made didn't really make enough for them to raise and
Speaker 1: educate their children, which was something they really um prioritized.
Speaker 1: There's a story in emil langlades bertim biography that Rose,
Speaker 1: when she was still a child, became just completely obsessed
Speaker 1: with having her palm read by a fortune teller who
Speaker 1: was reported to be extremely insightful and was also imprisoned nearby.
Speaker 1: And so since she had no money, Rose allegedly starved
Speaker 1: starved herself so that she could bring food to the
Speaker 1: fortune teller in exchange for having her palm read. Uh.
Speaker 1: The reading was rendered, and according to the tale, the
Speaker 1: young girl was told that she would quote rise to
Speaker 1: great fortune and one day where a court dress. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Uh. That biography, by the way, which will
Speaker 1: reference a few more times and was one of the
Speaker 1: big sources for this, was written in and I Uh.
Speaker 1: He did a lot of digging through records to get
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, a lot of the details and
Speaker 1: the the data about her existence and some of the
Speaker 1: numbers and stuff right, but there is a little bit
Speaker 1: of flourish, so I immediately kind of questioned this story,
Speaker 1: but it's an interesting one to include this idea that
Speaker 1: she was kind of obsessive and willing to do what
Speaker 1: she had to do to achieve what she wanted. Rosa's father, Nicholas,
Speaker 1: died on January of seventeen fifty four, and that left
Speaker 1: the family to survive as best they could on his
Speaker 1: wife's income. She was still working as a sick nurse
Speaker 1: and the family struggled, but Rose always assisted her mother
Speaker 1: whenever possible. She was not a girl that was afraid
Speaker 1: of hard work, so when she was only sixteen, Rose
Speaker 1: decided to move to Paris. She was smart and pretty
Speaker 1: and decided to use her charms to secure a position
Speaker 1: as an apprentice at a millinery shop. And the shop
Speaker 1: was called Trade Gallant, which translates to gallant stroke or
Speaker 1: gallant feature. And this shop was run by Mademoiselle Paget,
Speaker 1: and it was already a supplier of accessories to the
Speaker 1: courts of France and Spain, so it was really quite
Speaker 1: a good position to get into. Around this same time,
Speaker 1: a young woman named Jean Bick was also an apprentice
Speaker 1: at another millinery shop, which was run by Mademoiselle Labu
Speaker 1: and Jean Biq would later find her way into the
Speaker 1: name Madame Duberry and set her own place in history
Speaker 1: as King Louis fift mistress. Yeah, that's kind of one
Speaker 1: of those tie ins of a woman who maybe was
Speaker 1: not super virtuous working in the millinary trade. Still laughing
Speaker 1: about the seamstress skilled. Uh, and Rose had not been
Speaker 1: working for very long for Mademoiselle when she was dispatched
Speaker 1: one evening to make a delivery to the Princess de Conti.
Speaker 1: And while she was at the princess's residence, she made
Speaker 1: small talk with a woman that she believed to be
Speaker 1: a chambermaid. So, of course it turns out that she
Speaker 1: was actually talking to the princess, and Rose was just
Speaker 1: hugely embarrassed at her gaff and she apologized profusely. The princess,
Speaker 1: who had found her to be just quite charming, reassured
Speaker 1: her that no ill had been done, her identity had
Speaker 1: not been made a parent. The princess also promised ongoing
Speaker 1: goodwill towards pretend on her part. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: good friend to have made even though it was accidental
Speaker 1: and maybe definitely also in barrassing. Yeah, and the story
Speaker 1: is related in a way that she showed up and
Speaker 1: it was quite late in the evening, and this woman
Speaker 1: was already kind of dressed down. She was definitely not
Speaker 1: in robes that would suggest her position at all. So
Speaker 1: that's why Rose thought, Oh, it's just a mate, just
Speaker 1: chat while we wait for other people to come and
Speaker 1: look at these gowns I've brought. And then it was
Speaker 1: not the case at all, um, and the Princess's fondness
Speaker 1: for this young milliner was almost immediately manifest Soon after
Speaker 1: the two men and this embarrassing but fundamentally beneficial event
Speaker 1: took place. A royal marriage between the Duc de Chartre
Speaker 1: and Louise Marie led de Bourbon was arranged, and Rose,
Speaker 1: at her new royal friends recommendation, was called upon to
Speaker 1: make the bride's trousseau. She's like a huge get in
Speaker 1: terms of that's a big deal. This was a really
Speaker 1: lucrative bridal order, and it not only brought Rose into
Speaker 1: the favor of the royals, who would all need clothing
Speaker 1: and accessories, but it also elevated her position in the
Speaker 1: shop Mademoiselle Pagelle made rosa partner in the in the
Speaker 1: millinery shop, and from this point on Rose's royal patrons
Speaker 1: only grew in number. The Duchess de Chapla became a protectress. She,
Speaker 1: like the Princess de Conti, looked out for Rose and
Speaker 1: really helped along her business interests. Unfortunately, the Duke Duchat
Speaker 1: also took an interest in Rose, and Uh really pursued
Speaker 1: her very diligently in the hopes of a romantic relationship,
Speaker 1: but she really was not having that at all. Whether
Speaker 1: this is because she was loyal to her customer, the Duchess,
Speaker 1: or simply because she just was not interested in the
Speaker 1: man is is basically unclear, but either way, she had
Speaker 1: no time for that business. Nay was her response. Uh,
Speaker 1: and rumors of a plot that the Duke had concocted
Speaker 1: to kidnap Rose and take her away to a country
Speaker 1: house to sort of force her to become his mistress
Speaker 1: reached the Milliner. She found out about them, but it
Speaker 1: made her const only fearful that you know, at any
Speaker 1: moment someone was going to pop out from around the
Speaker 1: corner and snatch her and take her away to the country.
Speaker 1: It sounds terrible. It really does. Just trying to do
Speaker 1: her work her alone, trying to make your wife's clothes. Police,
Speaker 1: get out of my way. So one day Rose was
Speaker 1: visiting the comtest Duson about an order, and the Duke
Speaker 1: came and also made this appearance. She refused to get
Speaker 1: out of receipt when the Duke entered, and when the
Speaker 1: Countess questioned her about why she was acting this way,
Speaker 1: she was straight up front about it. She explained that
Speaker 1: the Duke had clearly forgotten his place in pursuit of her,
Speaker 1: and so she would not honor their societal gap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: She's like, when he remembers his place, I will treat
Speaker 1: him like he belongs in that place. Just kind of
Speaker 1: a wonderfully sassy and just to do it in front
Speaker 1: of one of his you know, social equals was very cool.
Speaker 1: People get mad sometimes when we talk about how much
Speaker 1: we love the people were talking about, but this is
Speaker 1: the moment when the switch goes to I love her. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the dude was caught in his game in front
Speaker 1: of this pier and he did not deny it, but
Speaker 1: he did call Rose a little serpent. I saw. It
Speaker 1: was by the same translator of this biography and one
Speaker 1: he called her a viper and in one he called
Speaker 1: her a serpent, like two different um translations by the
Speaker 1: same person. So, but the important thing is that he
Speaker 1: left her alone after that, kind of gave up his pursuit. Uh.
Speaker 1: And before we get to the next step in Rose's career,
Speaker 1: do you want to pause for a moment and have
Speaker 1: a word from a sponsor? Yes? Sweet, So back to
Speaker 1: Rose Bertin as her popularity with the royal class group,
Speaker 1: she sort of outgrew her position with Mademoiselle Pegette. So
Speaker 1: the Duchess was in the habit of assisting young women
Speaker 1: in their entrepreneurial efforts, and she had already given Rose
Speaker 1: her favor. So with the Duchess's financial backing, Rose set
Speaker 1: up her shop O Grand Mogul in the Rude Decent Honorey.
Speaker 1: And in addition to bankrolling this enterprise, the Duchess de
Speaker 1: Chiltloob also used her position to send business Rose's way
Speaker 1: and kind of ant as Rosa's pr agent within the
Speaker 1: Royal class. But she had already been doing to some degree.
Speaker 1: But once she had financially set up this business, she
Speaker 1: really wanted it to succeed in seventeen seventy, the Duchess
Speaker 1: met with Madame Danielaya and Madame the Misery, and these
Speaker 1: were the lady in waiting in first chambermaid who had
Speaker 1: been selected to attend the new Dauphine, who was Marie Antoinette.
Speaker 1: The Duchess praised Rosa's skills and personality and suggested that
Speaker 1: she be chosen to make the ensemble that the new
Speaker 1: princess would change into at Strasburg border crossing as she
Speaker 1: stepped onto French soil and became a woman of France. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: just in case anybody doesn't know that hasn't seen the
Speaker 1: movies about Marie Antoinette, etcetera. When she crossed from Austria
Speaker 1: into France, she changed all of her clothes, she changed
Speaker 1: everything so that she would emerge onto French soil as
Speaker 1: a French princess and leave Austria behind. And so Rose
Speaker 1: made that outfit that she changed into, which is a
Speaker 1: huge deal because that was also the outfit that most
Speaker 1: people would see her in for the first time, sort
Speaker 1: of her arrival ensemble symbolic and also actually important. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the lobbying of the Duchessess Chapla along with similar
Speaker 1: please from other royals that Barton had won over as
Speaker 1: clients actually got the young entrepreneur her order and the
Speaker 1: first exposure to her of her work to the new Princess. So,
Speaker 1: in addition to it being important because it was a
Speaker 1: huge imagery issue for France, it also gave the woman
Speaker 1: who would be queen her first taste of French clothing,
Speaker 1: so it was important on many levels. Yeah, so Bertense
Speaker 1: soon got her first in person introduction to the princess
Speaker 1: from Austria. It's entirely likely that the talented but also
Speaker 1: business savvy Milliner was just completely aware of the opportunity
Speaker 1: that was presenting itself to her. If she pleased the
Speaker 1: new Dauphine, all of France would be clamoring for her work.
Speaker 1: And thanks again to the high praise that her existing
Speaker 1: clientele gave Bertin, she was awarded a royal order for
Speaker 1: the princess in the amount of two twenty thousand livres,
Speaker 1: which is worth roughly four thousand dollars at the time,
Speaker 1: so that's in seventeen seventy two, so that is a
Speaker 1: huge fortune. Really, So we should point out that this
Speaker 1: rise to the favor of the queen was not like
Speaker 1: an instantaneous process. Marie Antoinette had arrived in France in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy and it was seventeen seventy two when Bertag
Speaker 1: got her first order. There were a lot more to
Speaker 1: come after that, though. The dauphine's clothing allowance in seventy
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy two was one hundred and twenty thousand livres annually,
Speaker 1: and that's roughly twenty four thousand dollars, very very roughly,
Speaker 1: but about one quarter of that money. I mean, even
Speaker 1: in today's money, if you just told me you have
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand dollars to spend on clothes here, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, right on high five, I'm laughing. I would
Speaker 1: show up to work in a ball gown every day. Um.
Speaker 1: But about one quarter of that expense was allocated for quote,
Speaker 1: ordinary dresses, like the dresses she would just wear in
Speaker 1: her day to day life if there was nothing important
Speaker 1: to do. Just highly unlikely when you are a dauphine,
Speaker 1: because then three quarters of that was designated for extraordinary expenses,
Speaker 1: i e. Fancy pants, unicorn dresses, like all of the
Speaker 1: big you're going to an event, you're being presented at
Speaker 1: X y or z, you're going to meet another member
Speaker 1: of royalty from another country that's here with an envoy,
Speaker 1: any of those types of things. So that already is
Speaker 1: a lot of money. In October of seventeen seventy four,
Speaker 1: Marie Ants when it's clothing allowance rose to two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand libra. Yeah. Again, it's almost doubling it from before.
Speaker 1: I mean not quite almost, but almost. It brings it
Speaker 1: to I mean, I'm doing quick math in my head
Speaker 1: and brings it to close to at the time still,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a million dollar budget. Now. I
Speaker 1: could not find a good comparison of like what that
Speaker 1: would elise. It's really hard to compare dollar amounts well,
Speaker 1: and especially because livra no longer exists as a form
Speaker 1: of currency, so tricky. But once Marie Antoinette became queen,
Speaker 1: she uh in her first year as queen, she accrued
Speaker 1: in a debt of three hundred thousand livre in clothing expenses,
Speaker 1: and the King did not actually know she was racking
Speaker 1: up quite that much, but she did it just the same.
Speaker 1: So the vast majority of this money was going right
Speaker 1: to Rose Berton, and so this sounds incredibly lucrative and
Speaker 1: it is. It was only a small portion of the
Speaker 1: money that she was making through her shop. So that
Speaker 1: where the Dauphine and then Queen went for her gowns
Speaker 1: and her accessories, that was where everyone wanted to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Barton really had kind of become this huge
Speaker 1: um business juggernaut in a way, because you know, and
Speaker 1: we should I shouldn't I mischaracterized when I wrote in
Speaker 1: the notes that it's like a small part of her business.
Speaker 1: It was a huge part of her business. But she
Speaker 1: was getting a lot of business on top of that.
Speaker 1: So I mean millions of dollars in the very vague
Speaker 1: equivalent of today's money being spent in this one millinery
Speaker 1: shop on clothes by the royal class. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: talked about Marie Antoinette becoming queen, and we should talk
Speaker 1: about her coronation gown because it was quite something and
Speaker 1: it was a batime creation. So traditionally, the clothing choices
Speaker 1: for the male royals and attendance at a coronation ceremony
Speaker 1: would be in a style which evoked no specific era
Speaker 1: or style of dress. Of course, neither Murray Antoinette nor
Speaker 1: Rose Bertant would agree to that idea at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And additionally, I mean they kind of had this this
Speaker 1: room to argue about it or argue their case. Because
Speaker 1: a royal consort had not been part of a coronation
Speaker 1: since Catherine de Medici in seven, there had been several
Speaker 1: bachelor kings in a row on the French throne. So, uh,
Speaker 1: there was more than a two hundred year long lag
Speaker 1: since the last lady in Marie Antoinette's position, and there
Speaker 1: wasn't a convention to follow based on that, and so
Speaker 1: the Dauphine and her designer kind of took advantage of
Speaker 1: that gap in protocol to go, all right, we're making
Speaker 1: a huge gown and it's going to be ridiculous and wonderful.
Speaker 1: The ridiculous and wonderful is right. The gown bertem made
Speaker 1: for Marie Antoinette to where it was encrusted with jewels,
Speaker 1: including many many sapphires, and also heavy embroidery has made
Speaker 1: the garment enormously heavy. Uh. Dressmaker slash designer tried to
Speaker 1: arrange a special carriage just to take it to the
Speaker 1: soon to be clean Yeah. I don't know that she
Speaker 1: was granted that wish. And Marie Antoinette was placed on
Speaker 1: a special stand to view the ceremony. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know, oad bearing issues were part of that.
Speaker 1: Because of this gown, she couldn't really walk around in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: gowns of this era were already extremely heavy compared to
Speaker 1: what we wear today. This would be extraordinarily heavy on
Speaker 1: top of that already heavy, Yeah, I mean it would
Speaker 1: not be. People probably have the image of the big,
Speaker 1: wide hipped you know, the penny a U shaped gowns.
Speaker 1: It's not uncommon for those to take twenty yards of fabric,
Speaker 1: just because of the many layers and the the shape
Speaker 1: of it is so wide, it's so on top of
Speaker 1: the weight of twenty yards of fabric is the weight
Speaker 1: of Heaven only knows the value of all of those
Speaker 1: jewels and heavy like gold bouton embroidery, which is very
Speaker 1: heavy on its own, and then underpinnings in case that
Speaker 1: was not enough. Yes, so it was a significant achievement
Speaker 1: in clothing engineering. I would even say so. As the
Speaker 1: crowd followed Marie Antoinette in style, herten was able to
Speaker 1: develop this rather ingenious way to just keep the money
Speaker 1: flowing in. She would take the orders from the rest
Speaker 1: of the royals for gowns that were similar to the
Speaker 1: ones of the Queen war And as the Queen saw
Speaker 1: more and more people dressed like her, she would get
Speaker 1: tired of that and want something new and different. Yes,
Speaker 1: so brit Town would design new styles for her Majesty.
Speaker 1: You know, she also had a hand in in the hairstyle,
Speaker 1: so there was lifting the hair higher, there was shifting
Speaker 1: the drape of a skirt by bustling at all, a polonaise,
Speaker 1: accenting with feathers, et cetera. And with each of these
Speaker 1: changes that kind of updated the style, the masses would
Speaker 1: follow and the Queen would again want something new. So
Speaker 1: she kind of developed this perfect cycle of just continuous
Speaker 1: orders planned obsolescence of royal clothing so smart it was
Speaker 1: really an effective business model. Her shops stayed busy with
Speaker 1: an array of clients wanting all the latest styles while
Speaker 1: she simultaneously worked on fashions for the Queen that we're
Speaker 1: going to become the next big style and ring the
Speaker 1: same people right back to her for a wardrobe update.
Speaker 1: And in France and particularly the Court of France at
Speaker 1: the time, to be out of date on your style
Speaker 1: was really an embarrassment and could really affect you socially,
Speaker 1: which is ridiculous, but that's how it worked. Uh. And
Speaker 1: Barton normally visited the Queen twice a week and she
Speaker 1: would discuss new designs. She would review sketches and textiles.
Speaker 1: They would talk about the styling and accessorizing that was
Speaker 1: going to accompany individual looks. Uh. And so she really
Speaker 1: became her stylist, and in many regards, even though there
Speaker 1: were other people making clothes for the Queen as well.
Speaker 1: If that can just blow your mind some more hundreds
Speaker 1: of gowns a year um. But this level of access
Speaker 1: to the Queen that Bartag had would normally be absolutely
Speaker 1: unheard of for someone outside the royal circle. But Marie
Speaker 1: Antoinet's obsession with fashion afforded the millinery these special privileges,
Speaker 1: and it also earned bear Town the nickname Minister of Fashion.
Speaker 1: Among Marie Antoinette's critics, she was really getting land based
Speaker 1: in the press a lot as being the source of
Speaker 1: waste or one of the purveyors of waste in the
Speaker 1: the royal court. That she they had realized she had
Speaker 1: figured out this wonderful way to keep money coming in constantly,
Speaker 1: and that she was purposely kind of putting an expiration
Speaker 1: date on everything by making similar copies of dresses. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they they really kind of lampooned her in the press.
Speaker 1: So it's important to remember that while Burton was benefiting
Speaker 1: financially from her relationship with the Queen and the Queen's circle,
Speaker 1: the real benefit was this so called protection that she
Speaker 1: had been offered by so many of them. So, for example,
Speaker 1: at one point one of Breton's relatives, who was a
Speaker 1: widow making her living as a bookseller, was arrested for
Speaker 1: selling pamphlets that satirized public officials in seventeen seventy three.
Speaker 1: Her town was able to just call up all of
Speaker 1: her friends among the royalty for help. So first her
Speaker 1: relative was released from the Bestie, but at her sentencing
Speaker 1: she was exiled from Paris for five years as a nishment,
Speaker 1: and Barton continued to campaign on behalf of the bookseller
Speaker 1: after this. This sentencing happened, and thanks to pressure from
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette and other ladies of the court, that sentence
Speaker 1: was overturned a month after it was issued. So not
Speaker 1: only did this woman wind up being freed, but then
Speaker 1: she was invited to dine with the Queen, and she
Speaker 1: became the court bookseller, which was a position that she
Speaker 1: held until the Revolution ousted Louis the sixteenth from his seat.
Speaker 1: And in another instance, during a royal procession through Paris
Speaker 1: en route to an event which had many carriages in it,
Speaker 1: the Queen, seeing Barton and her staff on the balcony
Speaker 1: of the shop in rudissent Hore, acknowledged her dressmaker, which
Speaker 1: is a huge honor for you know, a queen to
Speaker 1: point you out and kind of nod to you in
Speaker 1: one of these processions, and this resulted in every carriage
Speaker 1: after that of the King and Queen also having to
Speaker 1: acknowledge her. Apparently, Barton spent the day basically curteyed carriages,
Speaker 1: and on at least two equate occasions, the Queen also
Speaker 1: arranged for Barton to be led to a better seat
Speaker 1: at the theater when she was when she realized that
Speaker 1: her stylist was sitting in a less than stellar position
Speaker 1: to enjoy the entertainment. So Breton had really achieved an
Speaker 1: unprecedented level, like an unprecedented rise from her beginnings to
Speaker 1: where she ended up once she had the favor of
Speaker 1: the Queen, so to be granted these kinds of favor
Speaker 1: favors and especially with this much regularity by those in
Speaker 1: the highest positions of society, was quite an accomplishment for this,
Speaker 1: you know girl from I'm Young. So other women such
Speaker 1: as Madame Duberry, who we talked about earlier, had basically
Speaker 1: slept their way to the top of French society. Breton
Speaker 1: had used her entrepreneurial skill to get there. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: really says quite a bit about her and supports the
Speaker 1: idea of how very smart she was. Uh, and she
Speaker 1: cemented her place as a milliner to the nobility. She
Speaker 1: did have a little bit of uh, that thing that
Speaker 1: often happens to people when they get famous really quickly.
Speaker 1: She got a little bit of a superior attitude sometimes. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are tales of her telling clients that she was
Speaker 1: going to delay their orders because she and the queen
Speaker 1: had decided that a style should not be debuted until later.
Speaker 1: And she would sometimes shrug off customers of lower rank
Speaker 1: by selling them fashions that were out of date, even
Speaker 1: though wearing them would be social suicide. Like there's one
Speaker 1: tale of a nobleman who is trying to get a
Speaker 1: hat for a relative or a friend who is from
Speaker 1: the country, and she's like, sell them on the last
Speaker 1: month's hats. Yeah. So she really was just kind of
Speaker 1: saying like, you're unimportant, I don't really care about you,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible way to do business, but she
Speaker 1: had so much she kind of felt like she could
Speaker 1: make these, uh, less than ideal statements to people. She
Speaker 1: also said to have responded to criticism from people that
Speaker 1: by reminding them that her work was good enough for
Speaker 1: the Queen. I personally have no problem with her saying this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like she was pretty petulant about it though,
Speaker 1: where someone said, oh, you know this dress, uh, this
Speaker 1: bodice isn't quite right, and she'd be like, it's good
Speaker 1: enough with the Queen. Yeah, just kind of a snooty,
Speaker 1: petuity way to do it. I can't understand it in
Speaker 1: point of fact, but uh. She would also turn down
Speaker 1: work for the wives of white collar workers, so like
Speaker 1: if a lawyer's wife came to her, she'd be like,
Speaker 1: I don't really need your business. Uh. This backfired on her, though,
Speaker 1: because one of her employees uh set up shop for
Speaker 1: herself and made a pretty good living catering to the
Speaker 1: customers that Barton cast off, and they became rivals to
Speaker 1: some degree, and after an altercation where the furious Barton
Speaker 1: allegedly spat in the face of this former employee, there
Speaker 1: was a dramatic legal battle. So her snobbery kind of
Speaker 1: bit her on the tail. So Mademoiselle Pico, who was
Speaker 1: the former employee, said that she was so shocked by
Speaker 1: Britann's behavior that she passed out. Britang countered that she
Speaker 1: had never behaved in such a manner. The initial judgment
Speaker 1: found Bertag guilty, but she appealed, and at this point
Speaker 1: the Queen intervened. So not only was the previous judgment overturned,
Speaker 1: but Mademoiselle Pico was also ordered to pay the expenses
Speaker 1: that were associated with the appeal. So yet another example
Speaker 1: of where it was really good for Barton to have
Speaker 1: all these friends in high places. So because of her
Speaker 1: close association with the Queen and the Queen's circle, it
Speaker 1: is probably no surprise that as the revolution shifted the
Speaker 1: balance of power in France, it also shifted Barton's fortunes.
Speaker 1: Even after the royal family was in custody of the
Speaker 1: National Assembly, Burtang continued to deliver gowns to the Queen,
Speaker 1: although they were much simpler than what she'd been making before,
Speaker 1: and these deliveries, uh, it's worth pointing out, we're definitely
Speaker 1: an act of devotion. So at the time, the Milliner,
Speaker 1: having lost her social standing in large part, was also
Speaker 1: having trouble collecting debts from other clients, and so even
Speaker 1: though her finances were starting to crumble, she still clothed
Speaker 1: the dethroned queen like she was still very appreciative of
Speaker 1: their relationship. Once Marie An's, when it was executed, Pretend,
Speaker 1: realizing that things were not going to go well for her,
Speaker 1: fled to London. She set up a shop there and
Speaker 1: catered to many of her previous patrons from France who
Speaker 1: had also fled. She did return to France a couple
Speaker 1: of years later, though, in but she had no career
Speaker 1: at the level that she had once known to go
Speaker 1: back to. Her name was associated still with Louis the
Speaker 1: sixteenth the Mariantoinette, and the styles of dresses that she
Speaker 1: really excelled at were no longer fashionable. Uh. The fashion
Speaker 1: dolls that she had once made as miniature versions of
Speaker 1: her fashion designs, which would be sent out sort of
Speaker 1: as three D catalogs for people to see like it
Speaker 1: was almost like if you picture a fashioned doll today
Speaker 1: in a beautiful gown, and you would go, I want
Speaker 1: that gown. Um. They became popular as collectible, so she
Speaker 1: was still making those, and she was still making a living.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like she was a pariah, but she is
Speaker 1: really never able to return to the level of success
Speaker 1: that she had known during Louis the sixteenth reign. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Louie Nicolaubertin, who was Rose's nephew, was set up in
Speaker 1: her old shop and he sold linen's and other fancy articles.
Speaker 1: Rose still owned the shop, but she was mired in
Speaker 1: ongoing efforts to settle all the old pre revolution debts,
Speaker 1: and in the early eighteen hundreds, as she had gotten older,
Speaker 1: Rose would occasionally still sell small orders to royals who
Speaker 1: remembered her as a broker of the most elegant styles.
Speaker 1: But these really served to kind of stroke her ego
Speaker 1: more than they filled her pocketbook. While she struggled financially,
Speaker 1: Rose also offered her services to old friends as favors.
Speaker 1: She never really pressed them for payment. It's like all
Speaker 1: of her wiles that she had used to make such
Speaker 1: a huge fortune stopped being part of her her operating plan. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, while she was at the height of her career,
Speaker 1: really difficult and judgmental by some people's descriptions, she seemed
Speaker 1: to soften a lot after the revolution took the wind
Speaker 1: out of her sales, and I think she saw a
Speaker 1: sort of camaraderie with these people that were in a
Speaker 1: similar boat, of like, we had this life and now
Speaker 1: everything has changed, and now we're kind of all in
Speaker 1: this together, and let's take care of each other with dresses,
Speaker 1: with beautiful clothes. Uh. Sadly, Rose died on September eighteen
Speaker 1: thirteen in the village of Epinay, where she owned land
Speaker 1: and spent her time away from Paris. She was sixty six,
Speaker 1: and while she was certainly no longer famous the way
Speaker 1: she had been in her heyday, her obituary did run
Speaker 1: in numerous papers, and there were many kind remembrances written
Speaker 1: about both her style and her generosity, particularly later in life,
Speaker 1: although even before she became famous, people would talk about
Speaker 1: how how sweet she was and how she was very kind.
Speaker 1: So it seems like she kind of became a little
Speaker 1: bit of a tyrant for a brief period when she
Speaker 1: was super wildly popular, uh, and then that shifted back
Speaker 1: to sort of her her more natural nature. Her two
Speaker 1: nephew us Claude Charlemagne and Nicholas, and two nieces discovered
Speaker 1: that there were still many uncollected debts that were owed
Speaker 1: to bertin and so after she died they did manage
Speaker 1: to recover some of that money for the estate, but
Speaker 1: it took several decades. They really had to work quite
Speaker 1: diligently to collect any of that money. In the introduction
Speaker 1: to the biography that we referenced earlier by Emil Langelade,
Speaker 1: he wrote, the reign of Marie Antoinette was one of
Speaker 1: futility in Chiffon, and if the queen did not create
Speaker 1: the office of a minister of fashion, the court of
Speaker 1: Versailles was nevertheless always crowded with hair dressers, dressmakers, and
Speaker 1: milliners who exercised more influence than the king's counselors. Rosebertown
Speaker 1: was one of their numbers. Yeah, she definitely had a
Speaker 1: huge impact on fashion and happenings of the day. I
Speaker 1: mean it was more than close. She was making clothes,
Speaker 1: but it was more than clothes, and I just kind
Speaker 1: of love, you know, and he backed worry on fashion
Speaker 1: designers well, and the first portion of the story that
Speaker 1: basically going from nothing to being the primary dressmaker to
Speaker 1: the queen reminds me of Don't Laugh the Katy Perry movie,
Speaker 1: where we basically we basically learned that all of her
Speaker 1: stylists and make up people and people making her dresses,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are are people that she knew
Speaker 1: from before she became really famous, and she kind of
Speaker 1: brought them to mak her crazy outlandish clothing. And now
Speaker 1: they have makers and entertainment. Now they have careers in entertainment.
Speaker 1: Not not so much. You understand that that that connection,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm also quite fond of the Katy
Speaker 1: Perry movie for reasons that are somewhat foreign to me
Speaker 1: as not particularly a fan of Katy Perry. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: in the same boat. That was a good movie. Tracy
Speaker 1: got me to watch it, and it's not historical in
Speaker 1: any way, but well, my friend Alice watched it and
Speaker 1: was like, everyone should watch this because you just get
Speaker 1: to see people genuinely love something that they're really excited
Speaker 1: about for an hour and a half off And you know,
Speaker 1: I am thankful to Alice every time I think about
Speaker 1: Katie Perry. Thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: this Saturday. If you have heard an email address or
Speaker 1: a Facebook you are l or something similar over the
Speaker 1: course of today's episode, since it is from the archive
Speaker 1: that might be out of date now, you can email
Speaker 1: us at History podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at
Speaker 1: missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: and wherever else you listen to podcasts. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com.